Reason #732 The MLB All-Star Game Is A Joke: Fan Voting

As you probably know, fan bases in tiny markets (Kansas City, St. Louis) are filling all of their free time by filling out ASG ballots. That’s not a terrible thing by itself, but it’s pretty bad the way they are going about it. They’re voting multiple times every day (something that can be easily solved, by the way). But even that, maybe we can look past, as that’s more of an issue with MLB being stupid, as usual.

But there’s more. They fill out their ballots with only players from their team. Who cares if someone else is more deserving? They need to get their guys in there!

Now you may think this is just sour grapes coming from a Cubs fan. Nope. I’ve filled out one ballot and had a grand total of zero Cubs on it. I put Anthony Rizzo second among NL 1B, Kris Bryant third among 3B and Miguel Montero third among C.

The problem is spreading, too. MLB teams, their official accounts, are really pushing this mass vote movement. As you can see from that link, the Reds team name on twitter right now is #VoteReds.

The only comfort we can take in this entire ridiculous, stupid, pointless process is that yes, it’s an exhibition game that’s played for fun. Right?

Wait, it’s not? The World freaking Series is determined by the winner of this game?! Seriously?!?! Is there anyone with a pulse in the MLB offices? I don’t understand how this flies. The fans are voting, quite literally, entire teams into the starting lineups and we are going to use the result of this process to determine which league gets home-field advantage in the World Series. It’s unbelievable.

That’s not mentioning that players will lose All-Star Appearances on their resumes (trust me, this comes into play in multiple ways) and the TV ratings will be through the basement.

We’re long overdue for a change. Unfortunately, MLB decisions makers are too stupid to know it.